Is race still an issue in the US?

Is race still an issue in the US?

Since an African-American President was elected in 2008, the United States witnessed a change in racial attitudes. However, despite this change some have speculated that has been little to no change in eradicating racial divisions as witnessed from the police brutality incidents in 2014, the existence of racially motivated laws and the poor representation of ethnic minorities in Congress. (crap intro - argument unclear)

Racial divisions have not been overcome as demonstrated by the existence of racially motivated laws such as Alabama HB 56. Although in theory it's an anti-immigration bill, it's been used to scrutinise hispanics by giving police more authority to question their legal status. The 'stop and identify' statutes used in 27 out of the 50 states give the police more power to stop anyone they deem to be suspicious. Under this statute, ethnic minority groups, particularly African-American's are racially profiled. However, in a recent statement the Attorney General, Eric Holder, declared that he, Obama and the Justice Department are working together to eliminate such racially motivated laws. But, this is merely a promise and the underlying issue here is that these laws cannot be changed with a simple stroke of pen, and there's also question about how far the Federal government can go to change state laws.

The very unrepresentative nature of Congress is clear that racial divisions continue to exist in the US, particularly in the political system. Ethnic minorities makeup 36.3% of the U.S population, however, Congress fails to reflect this. In total, there are only 46 African-Americans, 32 hispanics, 11 Asians and 2 Native Americans. This unrepresentative nature leads to unrepresentative policies towards ethnic minorities which allows for racial divisions to occur. On the other hand, although Congress is indeed unrepresentative, it does not need to be fully representative because the role of a Congressman is to represent their constituents, not a...